Something that could have been
by Siera-Knightwalker
Summary: Hitomi is used to pulling people in and leaving then behind in her monotonous routine of moving to different cities, or countries. It gets tiring after some time. But then she finds people she wanted to stay beside. People who make her remember there is something in this world other than change. Even then, change stops for no man but Hitomi just needs to find her stability first.


**I should be ashamed of myself for this behaviour. I'm 2 days away from an important exam. And I'm writing a new story. I am a shameful person. **

**But I couldn't resist. I love that WildFire episode and I just rewatched it and I was struck with the sudden desire to write **_**something.**_ **So this is my something.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hyouka. It's too good for me. **

* * *

Hitomi was a couple months late in starting classes in the second year of middle school, and people had already made friends and groups without her. But that was okay, she was good at joining already established groups. She preferred that than to create a group herself that might end up breaking anyway. She could learn to be friends with everyone. At the end, that's what she always ended up doing.

She was standing in perfect posture with her hands in front of her and her head up, looking straight at her new homeroom teacher. The administrator who was helping her out gave her a last glance before walking away. The teacher smiled pleasantly at her.

"Nice to meet you, Nakajima-san. I am Sabe Sato, your homeroom teacher for the year."

"Please take care of me, Sato-sensei." She gave him a friendly smile and bowed.

"Of course. Please give me a moment, I will take you to your class." She nodded and went outside the door to wait for her teacher. She stood there for only a few minutes, by which time the last few students had disappeared from the hallway and it was creepily empty.

Sato-sensei left the staff room and closed the door before motioning her to follow him. She followed him with a smile on her face. She was quite nervous but she was sure she would be able to get along with everyone. As always.

The teacher barely paused outside the room before he walked inside. All the greetings were carried out and then he introduced her as the new student. She politely introduced herself like she always did. And as usual, there were a lot of curious looks from everyone, a few admiring looks from people and, of course, the people who didn't care about what was going on.

People say change is inevitable, but to her, it stopped feeling like a change. It just felt like everything was the same. The exact same as the last 7 times. How long would she get to stay here? How long would she even want to stay here?

She was directed to a seat and the person beside her gave her a quick greeting. She returned it with a smile and spent the first half of her day getting introduced to every teacher and the teachers giving her an easy day with a little review and giving everyone a slow day.

When break came, she turned to the guy who sat beside her to talk and get some information from him. Instead a hoard of girls and boys descended on her like a rabid pack of dogs.

She flinched back with wide eyes at the sudden surge of students and some of them laughed, before moving back a little and giving her some space.

"Sorry, we just don't have very many new comers in our town. People got a little excited! I'm Yamaguchi Kichirou, the class president. It's nice to meet you!" She smiled back more genuinely.

"It's nice to meet you as well, Yamaguchi-san."

Kichirou introduced the people around her one by one and by the end, she was almost dizzy with the information overload.

"I apologize in advance if I forget your name. I frequently transfer schools so it's hard to keep track of all the names." She bowed her head.

"That sounds hard…" someone whispered from the back.

"Haha, it's okay, Nakajima-san. We won't hold it against you. We've been here for ages and some of us still don't know everyone's names," Neijiri Kawakami said, probably an athlete going by his build. He immediately got hit by his _friend_, Kaminari Eiko, who he probably had a thing going on with judging by the looks everyone kept shooting them.

"That's just you! You don't even remember the names of all your classmates and it's been months!" She glared at him.

"Kamiri-chan, come on! I'm generally too busy with club activities." She glared even harder at that.

"My name is Kaminari, not Kamiri! Or just call me Eiko, you idiot! Stop ruining my name!" Neijiri stuck out his tongue at her with a small blush.

"Not even in your dreams!"

"You-!" Her hands shot out to capture his tongue but he danced away and she ran after him with an absentminded 'see you later!'

It was actually pretty cute.

"Don't mind those two. They're probably going to end up marrying right out of high school with the way they are going." Kichirou rolled her eyes at them while smiling fondly.

Hitomi could help it. She started laughing. Her loud laugher drew a couple of stares but people looked away after noticing the class president was talking to the new girl. She wiped tears from her eyes when she finally stopped.

Kichirou gave her a smile.

"We have a canteen if you didn't bring your own lunch. Most of the food ends up finished in the first ten minutes though so you would have to hurry if you want something."

"No no. I have a bento." She took out her own bento to show.

"Would you mind if I eat with you too?"

"Of course not, feel free." Hitomi smiled at the girl while she went back to her seat, waving a few of her friends away and came back to sit beside Hitomi. They opened their own bento and started eating.

"We also have a lot of clubs here. People like to make a lot of pointless clubs about everything because we don't really have a restriction about the number of clubs we can have, or the number of clubs we can be in, so everyone joins whatever clubs they tend to like."

"That sounds pretty nice. Generally, in the schools I have been in, people can only join one club and there is a minimum number of members per clubs so that makes it difficult for some clubs. I actually was a part of the Music Club then because I used to play an instrument, but then we moved again and I left behind my violin."

"Violin?" The girl looked at her with bright eyes. "It makes such beautiful sounds that I love to hear it! When you play it, I would love to hear it!" Hitomi gave an apologetic smile to her.

"I'm sorry, I haven't bought a new one yet. And I am a little out of practice so it might be a while." Kichirou immediately backed away.

"Of course, I didn't mean to be presumptuous."

"It's okay. I don't mind it." They went back to finishing up their meal.

"I don't mean to be rude by asking, but are you fully Japanese?" Hitomi's smile stiffened. It was actually a common question. In the beginning this had lead to a lot of teasing and bullying before she had wised up a little. Sometimes people still became estranged but she had gotten better at dealing with people.

"No, I'm actually not." She resisted the urge to shut her bento and kick the other girl out, but she remained seated and kept talking. "My mother was English and my father is Japanese. They met because my father travels because of his business."

There was a slight pause where Kichirou gave a soft 'oh' before falling silent again. No doubt it was going to be all over school with the way people closest to them were very conspicuously not looking at them or talking.

She looked at Kichirou before looking at those students before rolling her eyes, good naturedly. They started laughing.

It ended up being a nice day. Kichirou was like the older sister figure to her friends and she ended up showing her around after school, introducing her to the Music Club and anything she showed even a remote interest in.

She liked getting to know the other girl. It was fun getting to know unique people. That was probably the only thing that stopped her from going crazy, knowing how different people were due to circumstances or place of birth. Even people who seem similar might actually be totally different people when you get to know them.

At the end of her first day, she was pretty happy with where she was, though she still was unsuccessful in being able to talk to the guy who sat beside her. Not that she had tried that hard, but he had seemed like the cheerful kind too.

She walked back to her new home. She kind of wished they had an apartment instead. She liked apartments better, but she didn't really have a vote in the decision of where to move. Or if she wanted to move at all.

Sometimes the fact that she moved so often felt like a blessing. Sometimes it felt like a curse. She collapsed on the couch after taking off her shoes near the door.

It was ridiculous how much she was expected to take care of in a Japanese household, but at least her father had a caretaker who dropped by twice a week for upkeep and getting groceries. She was grateful for the reprieve. She didn't even want to think of how much she would have had to do otherwise.

She stayed in the couch for a few more minutes before letting out a groan when her stomach rumbled with hunger. She slowly put her book bag in her room before setting up to make a curry dish that she could eat for the next few days.

She wasn't a big fan of eating out so that meant she had to learn how to cook. Which was unfortunate, because she wasn't a fan of cooking. She should convince her father to get someone to cook for them as well.

Soon after dinner was done and over with, she ate her part and went off to take out one of her billion books out and started reading the story of how a girl fell into a different world and fell even more in love with a centaur.


End file.
